Thursday, October 15, 2009

Kaye Heins, Detective

I have been an active member of the ancestry.com website for a number of years.It has been a very valuable tool in my research. The latest improvement to this site is a section called Recent Activity. In this section Ancestry lists people who have looked up the same person you have been researching. Then you have the ability if you want to contact that person and share information....More about sharing later. From this section of the site I was able to connect to a distant relative on the Heins side of the family who had some new information for me. Also a distant cousin filled in a gap in my knowledge of my family that I had been researching since I started this hobby. I had the name of my great grandfather and I knew he had a wife that was my grandmother's mother. But I could tell from the birth dates of the other children there had to be a first wife...or else she had children when she was 5.I had asked in a few areas but no one knew he had a first wife and had never done the math to figure out that all the children were not hers. Then out of no where I get an email saying that his first wife was this person, her parents were these people and that she had been born in this place and died in that place..Never would I ever been able to find her had not the kindness of a stranger willing to share information been shown to me that day. Why would I look for the death of this woman in Texas when she was born in the early 1800s in Kentucky? Other resources I use, I have had to find on my own or I have been given as a tip by other researchers. One site that I check in on every day is called Myfamily.com. This particular groups of people either come from Pulaski County, KY or have relatives that still live there, like me. But the absolute best part of this site is that they share pictures.I never knew my dad's father. He died a couple of years before I was born. In all the pictures I have ever seen of him, he was old and bald. But on this site, thanks to some very giving people, I now have a picture of my grandfather as a young soldier in WWl and one of him even younger with hair! The man had hair, dark curly hair like mine. Oh wow! I am very fortunate thatI have relatives that are still alive that will confirm or flesh out what I have discovered. As you know I am not shy bout asking questions or confirming facts.

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About Us

About three years ago we sold our stick built home in Virginia and joined the subculture in the USA known as full time RVers. Our home then was a 38 ft. Montana fifth wheel that we pulled behind a Silverado Chevy diesel pick up truck. We traveled the US visiting places we have read about or places that people have told us to make sure we see.

Our travel companions were 2 very active and funny miniature poodles that stayed in trouble.

Erwin, my husband , and I have very different interests, his toward technology and mine toward wildlife, wildflowers, and photography.

This blog is a pictorial summary of our travels as full time RVers. If you choose to use it as a vacation planner, GO FOR IT!

How things have changed.. We now live in a condo in North Charleston, still have the camper and travel occasionally. Our companions are still the dogs. We really miss our travelling life and plan to do it again.